Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 1her rather uninteresting— a little too much the pattern-card
of the finishing-school; and his mother could not forgive
Rosamond because she never seemed to see that Henrietta
Noble was in the room. ‘However, Lydgate fell in love with
her,’ said the Vicar to himself, ‘and she must be to his taste.’
Mr. Farebrother was aware that Lydgate was a proud
man, but having very little corresponding fibre in himself,
and perhaps too little care about personal dignity, except
the dignity of not being mean or foolish, he could hardly
allow enough for the way in which Lydgate shrank, as from
a burn, from the utterance of any word about his private af-
fairs. And soon after that conversation at Mr. Toller’s, the
Vicar learned something which made him watch the more
eagerly for an opportunity of indirectly letting Lydgate
know that if he wanted to open himself about any difficulty
there was a friendly ear ready.
The opportunity came at Mr. Vincy’s, where, on New
Year’s Day, there was a party, to which Mr. Farebrother was
irresistibly invited, on the plea that he must not forsake his
old friends on the first new year of his being a greater man,
and Rector as well as Vicar. And this party was thoroughly
friendly: all the ladies of the Farebrother family were pres-
ent; the Vincy children all dined at the table, and Fred had
persuaded his mother that if she did not invite Mary Garth,
the Farebrothers would regard it as a slight to themselves,
Mary being their particular friend. Mary came, and Fred
was in high spirits, though his enjoyment was of a check-
ered kind— triumph that his mother should see Mary’s
importance with the chief personages in the party being